chapter one - the main office, obviously

chapter one — the main office, obviously

LUKAS WAS SITTING IN MY CHAIR AGAIN. The desk in my room creaked precariously as he pushed all his weight from my rolling chair onto it. He tested his weight once more as I watched on from the bed, too lazy to stop him. His biceps flexed and contorted as he kept trying to break the wood, and I finally made him stop when the creaks turned to cracks. He could be an actual idiot sometimes.

"Cut it out, Schmitt" I yawned, leaning back into the headboard. My feet were propped up on one of my pillows, one sock half-pulled off, probably from something stupid we'd been doing.

Lukas frowned at my chastisement, pursing his lips before rubbing a hand through his hair. His finger caught on the blond locks and he gave up mid-comb. Groaning, Lukas let his head fall back in exasperation so it was balanced on the top of the chair. The entire chair slid back at an angle and I wondered what would happen if he fell. Probably nothing.

"What should I do now?" He whined.

"I don't know. Do my homework or something" I shrugged, shooting him an innocent smile as he raised his brow.

"Kieran" He sighed, shaking his head. He stretched his arms out behind him to rest his head on them, pushing himself around in my chair. His socks slid against the wood, unable to give him the needed traction so he could zoom, so instead, he was left moving the rolling chair around with an undignified shuffle.

I smiled to myself, quite content with how easily I could annoy him. Lukas was decidedly apathetic when it came to most people. Simply put, he didn't give a fermented shit about what anyone had to say about him, or anything anyone said or did in general. I was the lone exception. He was my best friend, yeah, but I could piss him off like no one could. It was one of my many skills.

"Kieran"

Another one of my skills being tuning out my name being called over and over again.

"Kieran!"

It's an unrecognized talent, honestly.

"Kieran Mogan, are you sleeping in my class?"

That doesn't sound like Lukas.

I jerked awake, taste of paper strong in my mouth. I lifted my face from the desk, hood shielding most of the sleep from my eyes. Pulling on the drawstrings of my hoodie, I tried to look a little bit awake so I could give Ms. Bitchass a reasonable enough excuse. I smacked my mouth, tongue dry and tasting like Shakespeare.

"Kieran, I'll ask you one more time, were you sleeping in my class?"

I looked down at my sheet; the work I had managed to do before conking out was blurred by drool. I grimaced. There was no point paying attention to the lesson if I didn't have legible notes, it would be a complete waste of time and effort. I knew better ways to waste my time, none in the confines of this dingy-ass classroom.

"Yeah, okay, Ms..." I trailed off, unable to conjure up the name of the teacher. She scowled in my direction, ready to pounce. I rolled my eyes.

"...I was sleeping. Jesus. Even a blind person could tell. What do you want? A confession? Here it is: I was sleeping in your class. That clear enough for you, or do you need me to repeat it a dozen times like you were?"

"Enough. Detention with me after school today, Mr. Mogan. I expect to see you this Saturday and the next for Detention as well" She started to make her way back to the front of the classroom, thinking the confrontation was over. All her half-empty head could focus on was finding her goddamn PowerPoint on Shakespeare's life.

"Detention?"

Three of them, of course.

Shit. That wasn't gonna work. I wanted to leave now. With detention, I had to stay longer in this hell hole.

"Unless you would prefer going to see Princip—"

"—Yes please" I sighed with relief, bending down to pick up my backpack. Pushing my chair back, I reveled in the sound of the metal scraping against the ancient tiles of the classroom. Ms. Bitchass winced at the sound, accompanied by the army of snowflakes in my class who thought Ms. Bitchass controlled their future. It was pathetic how many people were scared of her.

"Excuse me?" Ms. Bitchass frowned, stalling her search for the PowerPoint she wanted to show us.

"I've been a naughty boy" I muttered to myself, catching the very startled blush of my desk-neighbor.

I shoved my papers into my backpack, slinging it over my shoulder. It was decidedly beaten up, one of the straps half-chewed up from when my friend Marco's drug experimentation had gone a little haywire and he'd started eating fabrics.

Apparently, canvas tasted like arroz con pollo, whatever the hell that was.

"Bye" I waved at her loosely, weaving through the rows to the door.

I brushed by Paisley Roberts and she blushed a vivid pink, matching the color of Pepto-Bismol and, come to think of it, Lukas' stupidass duffle bag. The bag was a hand-me-down of some kind, according to Lukas, and was a bright-ass fuschia shade he tried to pass off as a faded red. The fucker thought he could trick me, but his bag was definitely fucking pink like Paisley was now, for some stupid reason no doubt.

"Where do you think you're going?"

I heard the clack of heels behind me and paused, halfway through the door. Ms. Bitchass had a confused look on her face, one clawed hand on her waist.

"To the main office," I scowled, "Obviously"

Δ     Δ     Δ     Δ     Δ     Δ     Δ

"Ay, Mogan! Good game, Friday!"

"Oh, thanks, uh—"

"—Really wiped the floor with them, huh?"

"Mhm, bye"

I quickly shuffled past the stranger, pointedly avoiding his gaze. I didn't know him, and I didn't know how the hell he knew me. No way was I gonna strike up a conversation with him. Who fucking does that?

Where the fuck is the fucking Art Room?

I'd spent almost two years at this fucking school and I still had no clue where anything was. Except for the main office, but I'd only go there when hell froze over.

Bingo.

I pushed the door open, checking the hallway to make sure Ms. Bitchass hadn't sent any security guards after me. It had happened before, so I wouldn't be surprised. Our security guard, Rocco, was in charge of catching kids who tried to skip class. Ms. Bitchass probably thought I was dead meat, but little did Ms. Bitchass know that Rocco was my friend DJ's uncle, and my "number one biggest fan," his words not mine. Rocco would sooner marry Ms. Bitchass than get me in trouble. He was a real one for sure.

I slid into the art room, door not even fully closing before I heard DJ's booming laughter.

"You're so fucking stupid" DJ cackled, and he slowly slid into view. DJ and Roger were sitting across from each other at the massive art table. DJ was working on a clay thing, Roger hunched over a drawing while the art teacher looked up at me, disgruntled.

Mr. Rodriguez's face contorted into a grimace when he saw me.

"So, you too have decided to join your delinquent friends and disrupt my lunch break?"

"Yup"

I threw my bag into an open chair, grabbing a seat on a stool next to Roger. He nodded at me, partially folded over a piece of paper with dark black lines all over it. He'd explained it to me once, but I couldn't bother to remember. It was a drawing with like black chalk maybe?

"It's charcoal"

I looked over and DJ grinned at me, amused by my lack of artsy knowledge. Well, fuck him.

"I don't care" I answered lamely and he huffed, rolling his eyes before going back to his sculpture of a dick. I had no fucking clue why DJ was sculpting a dick with so much concentration, but he was.

The only one in our group who took an art class was Roger. He was like an actual Picasso of sorts. Or Beethoven, the guy who invented the Mona Lisa.

I shrugged to myself slumping forwards so my elbows were on the table. I'm no good at this art stuff, so I whipped my phone out, already bored by the silence.

The only reason we were allowed to hang in here was because Mr. Rodriguez loved Roger—thought he was an actual prodigy. Roger always spent his lunch break in the art room, and it gradually morphed into a place we could chill. DJ picked up art too, hence his sculpture. He didn't take it very seriously though so it was disturbingly phallic.

"You think Lukas will skip PreCalc to come here?" I wondered out loud, already typing out a text to send to him.

"If you ask him, yeah" DJ replied, busily circumcising his sculpture with a spatula.

Roger sniggered, turning his paper around so he could look at it from a different angle. I thought all the angles looked the same, and I impatiently kicked my legs out.

My phone pinged when I got a text back from Lukas in the group chat and I quickly snatched it up.

Lukass: bro, wtf did you ditch Ms. Hardmeat's class again?

Kieranus: ye, I was caught sleeping again and is that actually her fucking name?

Lukass: she honestly thinks you sleep? and yeah, it is

Kieranus: this time I did sleep lol

Lukass: nice. Who needs sophomore english anyway?

I grinned, smile slipping when DJ nudged my leg with the toe of his stupid OffWhites, stupid tag dangling from the laces. DJ was into brand shoes like that, could afford them too whereas I was content with my dirty Nikes for the most part. I only splurged on basketball shoes, didn't see the point in having anything else nice if I didn't care about anything other than basketball.

"Is Schmitt coming or what? Marco said he'd be here in 10"

"Lemme check"

Kieranus: come to the art room

Lukass: why?

Kieranus: im bored

Lukass: k, omw

MarcHoe: lol Lukas ur such a bitch for Kieran

Kieranus: stfu Marco

DildoJuice: stop spamming me and get ur asses here @MarcHoe@Lukass

I rolled my eyes, turning my phone off and slipping it into my pocket. I impatiently tapped on the table and DJ rolled his eyes across from me.

"Don't worry your sweet-ass, wifey. Your man'll be here soon"

I scowled and flipped him off, before burying my head into my arms. I was fucking exhausted from practice yesterday, and my body had felt like it had been hit by a semi this morning. Luckily, Nurse DJ had some lidocaine patches on him and I'd stolen them during Gym alongside one of Marco's painkillers.

"You good Keke?"

I felt a hand slap my back and looked up excitedly, lips splitting into a grin when Lukas dragged a stool over next to mine. He nudged me with his shoulder, a small smile on his lips.

"Don't fucking call me that, and yeah, 'm alright," I yawned, resting my head on my forearm and leaning so I could meet Lukas' eyes.

"Just tired and sore" I admitted, letting my legs dangle so I could knock them into Lukas' in a repetitive pattern. He looked down in surprise, which soon turned to determination as we waged a silent war between who could kick each other harder and evade the other's attack.

"Yeah, I'm still sore from last night too" Lukas murmured, wincing when I got him in the shin.

"Same here" DJ piped in, echoed quietly by Roger who was still lost in his world.

"You guys make it sound like we had a massive orgy last night"

I looked up from the battle to meet Marco's haughty stare, shooting Lukas a scowl when he kicked my ankle happily. He shrugged, not guilty, and followed my gaze.

Marco nodded at us with a subtle smirk hopping up onto the stool next to DJ.

"Hey Mr. Rod" He grinned and waved at the art teacher enthusiastically.

"Please don't call me that"

Marco ignored him and spread his stuff all over the table, shoving aside DJ's tools. DJ huffed in annoyance before sighing in defeat, starting to pack up his stuff. His dick sculpture looked surprisingly realistic.

"Any reason you're sculpting a dick that's not super gay?" Marco drawled, loosely punching DJ's shoulder.

I grimaced, Lukas chuckling softly next to me. DJ just rolled his eyes, sighing like a disappointed father.

"It's for our Anatomy unit" He reasoned, getting up to wash his hands.

"Mr. Rod!" Marco gasped in fake-outrage, "You're still teaching them shit? There's only like two months of school left"

Mr. Rodriguez pointedly ignored Marco, more concerned with enjoying his lunch.

"He'll be gone soon. Just one more year" I heard Mr. Rodriguez mutter under his breath.

Marco sniggered, letting go of the topic as he reverted to what we had been talking about.

"I'm not that sore. Practice wasn't that bad" he said, whipping out his AP Econ. homework. He was good with that kind of stuff—statistics and numbers— but he made it a point to barely pass all his other classes.

"Probably 'cause you've been high since practice, idiot" DJ slapped Marco's shoulder, grabbing onto his other homework to see if he could help him bullshit it.

Marco sniggered, "Yeah"

Mr. Rodriguez promptly turned up the music in the art room, eyes tired as he watched us. Technically, he had to report all the shit he heard us say, so he tried his best not to hear us.

I yawned, ready to take a nap when Lukas knocked my shoulder with his. He was looking at Roger's drawing with a small frown, and I craned my neck to see the paper. I scowled when I couldn't see it from my angle, elbowing Lukas so he would talk to me.

"What's up?"

He snapped out of his staring contest with Roger's art thing and looked at me, cheeks looking a little pink. The hell? All I knew was that Roger's class was going over the anatomy unit, so I guessed that Lukas had seen a pair of tits on the paper and got embarrassed. He was like that sometimes, easily embarrassed by anything involving naked girls. He'd been that way since as long as I could remember though, so I tried not to tease him about it. Much.

"Y-you going to Paisley Robert's party this Friday?"

I shrugged, swiveling so I was facing him completely. Our knees knocked together so I scooched my stool back to give him some room.

"Don't really want to"

"Well, I'm going" Marco chimed in, folding his English homework into an airplane. He tested it out, watching as it looked around completely and smacked Roger in the head.

"Oops," He sniggered.

Roger simply picked it up and passed it to DJ who unfolded it with a quiet 'sorry', like he was in charge of Marco or some shit. Roger stretched out, shrugging in nonchalance, before sliding his paper to the side and grabbing Marco's history quiz. A large red D was scrawled on the top left corner and Roger's lips quirked into a smile before he smoothed it out.

"You wanna make a good paper airplane? Fold it down like this"

He shaped the paper and threw it above Marco's head. We all watched it float around the room before it hit a draft from the AC unit and made a beeline for Mr. Rodriguez's head.

"Shit, Mr. Rodriguez wat—"

It hit him in the head with a dull thwack and he looked up, too tired to care.

"Sorry" Roger smiled sheepishly and the rest of us laughed. Marco snorted, his laughs morphing into hiccups. Marco always did that, either with coughing or hiccups. He could never laugh for too long. DJ ceased his laughter, patting Marco on the back with lazy intent.

I let my laughter continue into quiet snickers, Lukas elbowing me with barely concealed humor to make me stop. He hushed me, lips splitting into a smile when I looked at him with a stupid grin.

Mr. Rodriguez just waved his hand, going back to eating his lunch. He was just that chill.

"Well, if you're going I'm going. You can give me a ride right?" Roger looked at Marco from across the table.

"Yeah, no problemo," Marco slung his arm around DJ's much taller shoulders, "DJ here wouldn't mind giving us both a ride"

DJ frowned, "Since when was I going?"

"Since now" Marco grinned cheekily.

DJ just shook his head and I snorted. Marco liked to tease Lukas and me about being each other's bitch, but it was blatantly obvious who the real bitch was here. I wasn't sure I'd heard DJ say 'no' to the guy once.

"Pussy whipped" I coughed into my hand with a smug grin. DJ groaned and flipped me off a little ticked off whereas Marco just pouted fakely, lips still forming a semi-smile.

"How about you Keke, you going?" Lukas prodded at my shoulder, his other hand pushing back his blond hair. It was growing a little long, and I think he wanted to cut it this weekend. I'd offered my skills, but he'd quickly denied remembering the last time he let me test my barbershop skills on his head, and the bowl cut that resulted.

"Not my name, and I don't really want to go, you?" I leaned my torso against the table.

"Well if they're going, I'm thinking I will" Lukas gestured to the rest of our friends. I bit my lip, starting to think over the idea of a party.

"I guess I'm going then" I groaned in fake-disappointment.

"Pussy whipped"

I heard Marco cough noisily into his hand and I shot him a glare. He held his hands up in mock surrender.

"Lo siento"

"Fuck off Marco"

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2890 words

Feels good to be back :)

How do you guys like it so far?

Welcome to Boys Will Be Boys version two! Thank you so much for reading this, if you're new or from the original. As you can see, chapters are going to be longer in this version, and some of the character's personalities are going to change slightly. Nothing too drastic, but enough to make it different. I hope you guys liked this chapter, and I'll see you all next week <3